Degree Program Assessment Reports

Upon graduating from the BA in SLS, students will:

1. Manifest the skills, understandings, and dispositions necessary to be exceptional language professionals.
2. Demonstrate critical thinking and awareness of issues within the context of their professional work and social practice.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of the value bases of their professional work.
4. Interpret the history of second and foreign language study and its contemporary issues.
5. Critically evaluate and make use of research into the learning, use, structure, and pedagogy of second languages.
6. Develop and apply sound frameworks in the assessment and evaluation of institutions and agents involved in second language instruction, planning, and policy.
7. Show an understanding of local language issues of Hawai'i and the Pacific in their professional work.
8. Be able to prepare minority language students to acquire the academic literacies that will allow them to succeed in educational institutions.
9. Improve the quality of teaching and learning second, foreign, and heritage languages, in the state of Hawai'i, domestically, and abroad.

Additional program goal: Upon graduating from the BA in SLS, students will be prepared to apply for admission to graduate programs in second language studies, applied linguistics, or related fields.

A)    Evaluation of the needs, degree of departmental support, and feasible options for an experiential learning program in the BA in SLS.

• Regular meetings between the researcher, BA program coordinator, and BA advisors about specific areas of focus for the study, updates on findings, and revisions to plans for the study.
• Document analysis of program literature.
• Surveys of faculty/instructors, BA committee members, BA administrators and advisors, and undergraduate students majoring either in SLS or an SLS-focused BA in Interdisciplinary Studies.
• Delphi technique with faculty/instructors and BA administrators/advisors as follow-up to address areas of ambiguity identified in the survey results.
• Focus group sessions with faculty/instructors, BA administrators/advisors, and undergraduate students to corroborate and clarify findings from the surveys and Delphi technique.

B)    Clarifying what is meant by the key terms in SLO #1 (“skills”, “understandings”, and “dispositions”).

Interviews of faculty/instructors of SLS BA courses and members of the SLS BA committee, to identify a range of definitions and examples for each of the three terms in the SLO.

C)   Collection of data for future assessment, via student-created portfolios from the capstone course (Professionalism in SLS).

MS Word files for all components of students’ professional portfolios were collected for future assessment and evaluation.

A)    Evaluation of the needs, degree of departmental support, and feasible options for an experiential learning program in the BA in SLS.

• Gaining professional experience was present, but not explicit, within program literature.  Nevertheless, over 80% of faculty, staff and students felt that it was important to gain professional experience while earning their degree, but that it should be optional, not a required part of the degree.
• Given that the majority of SLS majors are primarily interested in teaching a second language, the primary focus was on options for gaining meaningful teaching experience. However, it was also acknowledged that the SLS major can lead to a variety of language-related careers other than language teaching, and thus, any results must also take into consideration these other options.
• The Delphi technique and focus groups clarified key elements of what was considered “meaningful” teaching experience, and clarified that SLS course projects that involved developing a lesson plan and teaching it to peers was one of these experience (but also recognized that a one-time lesson is not the same as extended lessons over a period of time with a student or students whose aim was to learn the language).
• All focus group findings suggested that SLS institutionalize a program for students to gain professional experience, with one or more members of the department in charge of managing the program and supporting students. However, focus group participants also recognized that this level of support required resources that the department does not currently have available.

B)    Clarifying what is meant by the key terms in SLO #1 (“skills”, “understandings”, and “dispositions”).

The original intention for this project was to quickly clarify what was meant by the three terms in SLO#1, then move forward with an analysis of where these items were addressed within SLS courses and extracurricular activities. However, it quickly became clear that all three terms were particularly difficult to define and exemplify.  Interviewees gave over 150 different answers for what they thought were relevant skills, understandings and dispositions of an SLS major.  Some of the answers were generalized and others were very specific.  In the end, all that was within the scope of this project was for the researcher, with help from an experienced PhD student in SLS, to code the answers into themes, and to begin developing a survey based on those themes.

C)   Collection of data for future assessment, via student-created portfolios from the capstone course (Professionalism in SLS)

At this point, data was merely collected.  After a number of semesters’ portfolio data has been gathered, it is expected that the SLS department’s evaluation committee will oversee an assessment project involving this data.

This evaluation period (June 2011-September 2012) constituted the first year of our BA program being housed within our department (prior to this, a BA in an SLS-related field could be earned via the Interdisciplinary Studies program). When an academic program is new, almost everything that the program administrators and advisors do involves trial and error and a great deal of reflection (that is, almost every step taken involves a form of assessment or evaluation).

Further, in a field as broad as Second Language Studies, there is a diversity of areas of expertise, and thus, a broad range of views about what is considered important for the major (as shown in the project designed to clarify the terms of SLO#1). We would like to learn more about best practices for helping graduate students design valuable and “doable” assessment and evaluation projects, as well as best practices for designing an assessment plan and sharing information learned.

We would also like to learn more about ways of making assessment and evaluation an important  part of our standard practices, given the constraints we face (particularly limited human resources).